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Video Study for Parsha Vayechi :

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muman613:
Shalom JTF Readers,

This week has been going very fast for me, I've been up to my eyeballs with work and stress related to two projects requiring my support (both of which are high priority). We are bringing up a new chip (in silicon) at our office, while simultaneously supporting a bring-up of a newer chip design in emulation in Shanghai, China... Needless to say everyone on our team is stressed, and the snapping point is coming soon.

But it is time to forget about work and concentrate on learning the Torah portion of this week. We are reading Parsha Vayechi, the final portion of the book of Bereshit/Genesis. I also cannot believe we are at this portion as I remember from 2010 when I had to go to LA for my final visit with my father before he passed away on Jan 8, 2010. If I remember I was studying the portion of Shemot, the first chapter of the book of 'Exodus'.

It is in this portion that Yaakov passes away, and at the end of the portion Yosef passes away. I always find it interesting that I was called to my fathers bedside to receive his blessings before his passing at the same time in the Torah cycle that Yosef blessed his sons. I recall my father saying that he had dreams that I would be fighting for Israel...

This portion sets up the events which will transpire in the first portion of shemot...


--- Quote ---http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/3228/jewish/Vayechi-in-a-Nutshell.htm

Jacob lives the final 17 years of his life in Egypt. Before his passing, he asks Joseph to take an oath that he will bury him in the Holy Land. He blesses Joseph’s two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, elevating them to the status of his own sons as progenitors of tribes within the nation of Israel.

The patriarch desires to reveal the end of days to his children, but is prevented from doing so.

Jacob blesses his sons, assigning to each his role as a tribe: Judah will produce leaders, legislators and kings; priests will come from Levi, scholars from Issachar, seafarers from Zebulun, schoolteachers from Simeon, soldiers from Gad, judges from Dan, olive-growers from Asher, and so on. Reuben is rebuked for “confusing his father’s marriage bed”; Simeon and Levi, for the massacre of Shechem and the plot against Joseph. Naphtali is granted the swiftness of a deer, Benjamin the ferociousness of a wolf, and Joseph is blessed with beauty and fertility.

A large funeral procession consisting of Jacob’s descendants, Pharaoh’s ministers, the leading citizens of Egypt and the Egyptian cavalry accompanies Jacob on his final journey to the Holy Land, where he is buried in the Machpelah Cave in Hebron.

Joseph, too, dies in Egypt, at the age of 110. He, too, instructs that his bones be taken out of Egypt and buried in the Holy Land, but this would come to pass only with the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt many years later. Before his passing, Joseph conveys to the Children of Israel the testament from which they will draw their hope and faith in the difficult years to come: “G‑d will surely remember you, and bring you up out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
--- End quote ---

This time I will start with a 'Kahanist' Rabbi, Rabbi Levi Chazan:

muman613:
Rabbi Moshe Weisblum offers some Torah thoughts on Vayechi..

muman613:
For the students of Kabbalah and Chassidut, Rabbi Yaakov Nagin of Otniel Yeshiva on lessons learned about life...

muman613:
Here is Rabbi Machlis talking about our portion, recorded in 2010 this must have been taking place within a week of visiting my father, may his soul have an aliyah...

muman613:
I never watched his videos but I believe that this guy may have been a JTF member at one time. Although sadly the news of his passing makes his message more relevant.

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